Hey, welcome back! Memorial Day is over, which means it's officially
summer, which means some of you have half-day Fridays and others sit there
and secretly think of different sharp items to shove into your boss' neck.
You now get to look at all those cousins you have in college, the ones
traveling for the summer, farting around, and you get to hate them.

And in 10 years, none of us will even notice summer anymore, except that
it's the time we have to drive the brats to the park and back, and Sunday
nights are pizza night.

Yep, we're feeling old at The Black Table this morning.

We have 10 reviews this week. We'd have more, but it's a holiday weekend
and everyone's lazy. It happens. Help us out next week and pump it up.
We're going for 45 next week!

-- BT

The Black Table
needs your help! Every week, we need reviews of the latest media-related
crud, new products from Capitalists and odd idea, concept or trend. All
you need to have is a sharp opinion that you can distill down to one paragraph
of 150 words and give a letter grade. To submit, please fill out the form
below. Entries may edited for length, style and clarity. Hit us with your
best shot. Fire away.

Name:

Email Address:

Item Being Reviewed:

Type your review here. And remember
to add a letter grade, or else we'll make one up and embarass you in
front of all your friends:

Before you submit anything, ask
yourself the following: Have I put a grade on my review? Have I read
this thing at least once? Will anyone care what I wrote? If the answer
is NO to any of those questions, break down and cry, knowing you're
a failure who can't do anything right. You stupid face head moron!

A REAL SPRING: Complain if you must, harp on and on about the
rain and the chill, but just don't wish it away: this is the first real
spring we've had in what feels like a decade. It will be hot soon enough.
I haven't yet packed away my sweaters, I'm still using my comforter at
nights and I am in no rush to get a pedicure or a bikini wax, and it's
wonderful. You know how everyone wishes for a warm spring, and then suddenly,
in April, it's 80 degrees, and everyone is so happy. Just remember what
happens when July rolls around, and the sidewalk is oppressing you with
its 110 degree waves of emanating heat, and you think "God, the city
has smelled like hot garbage for the past four months, when will this
end?" Staying consistently below 70 degrees until June: A
-- aae

DOING AIRSHOWS OVER MANHATTAN: On Memorial Day, like a good American,
I stayed indoors, painting my new apartment and catching some afternoon
baseball. Out of nowhere, a deafening rumble: Looking out the window,
I see four fighter jets, just feet apart, trailing smoke and twisting
and turning. For a moment, I oooh and ahhh like I'm supposed
to, like I did when I was a kid and they were zipping above the Coles
County (Ill.) airstrip, zooming over cornfields and chubby cows. But I
am not in Coles County anymore; I'm in Manhattan. Back then, one bad move
by one of the pilots kills him, the dude in the other plane and maybe
some crops at the Ames farm. Here, one false move, and there goes Washington
Heights. I know it's Memorial Day, and I salute anything that reminds
us why such a day is important, but of

all places to have an airshow, the skies above Manhattan would seem
like one of the worst. D -- Will
Leitch

FAKE TOENAILS: Fake fingernails were bad enough, those superglued-on
slabs of acrylic that make women's nails look like Howard Hughes', curled
under after a year of no trimming. Now we have fake toenails applied in
the same barbaric way as fake fingernails that look just as phony. Pedicures
are no longer just pedicures; they're procedures of torture using cyanoacrylate
strong enough to bond to and hang an automobile from a one square-inch
toenail. With sandal weather here, expect to see these grotesque French-manicured
appendages on women's feet everywhere. Men, enter the bed at your own
risk -- these shovels could take a pound of flesh out of a leg. F
-- Angela
Genusa

THE RUN-IN: Running into someone that you know pretty well, but
don't particularly have anything to say to outside of the context of whatever
social atmosphere you know them in is such an unfortunate occurrence.
This is especially true if the person you have the run-in with actually
enjoys these random little miracles of small world-ness. I propose that
we forge a cultural agreement mandating that upon seeing someone you know,
you need not make small talk with them. A quick "hello, see you soon,"
should always suffice, chiefly if you are running late, unshowered/hungover
or need to pee. And if the person you run into decides to spontaneously
join you in your until-then happily hermetic activity of grocery shopping/coffee
retrieval/dog walking, etc., then you should be allowed to tell them to
leave, the moment is over, the run-in has run its course. If this could
become a more widely accepted form of behavior, surely there would be
a lot less ducking behind trees and hiding in the folds of your newspaper.
Bumping into someone you know: C. Running into someone you know
who then clings to your side or insists on having a 15-minute conversation:
F -- Michelle
C.

THE WORLD "SOLUTION:" OK, it's time to talk about the
overuse of the word "solution" in today's corporate world. Marketing
people seem to think "solution" can mean anything and be placed
anywhere, suddenly everything is a "solution." Companies provide
"Office Document Solutions." No, assholes, they're fucking called
"Copiers."
They make one paper into a lot of papers. I saw a description of a "Marine
Telematic Solution." You know what it was? A fishfinder. That's right,
you get a redneck on Bassmasters to correctly say "Marine
Telematic Solution" and I'll buy you a fucking cookie. I haven't
been this angry about overuse since America's radio stations overplayed
the music of the band Live to the point that ten years later I still want
to claw out my ears with the fist two chords of "Lightning Crashes."
Stop the madness, slap the next person who utters "solution"
near you. Corporate idiots in need of a thesaurus: F -- JG

MARRIOTT FINANCIAL CENTER: As a worker drone in town on business,
who has recently moved from the corporate apartment to a hotel, let me
take this opportunity to say thanks. So thank you Marriott Financial Center.
Thank you for your elevator which does a one second freefall, then sits
for five minutes halfway between floors 37 and 38. And thank you for not
fixing it so it does it regularly. Thank you for your efficient maid staff,
who punctually knock on my door at 8 a.m. everyday. It must do you proud
to have the only work staff I know of in NYC that shows up before 9:30.
Thank you for taking that no-slip pad off the bottom of the shower/bath
but leaving the cement glue stuck to the floor. Thank you for Carbon Monoxide
Alarm in my room which beeps several times at 3 a.m. just to let me know
it's still on the job. What the fuck is that there for anyway? And a very
special thanks to your staff in the concierge lounge who interrogate me
every week when I try to go in for breakfast. Yes, I know I look young.
Yes, I am platinum. Yes, you can check my room number. By the way, I've
been eating here every day for the past four weeks - do you think you
could remember someone you see over 20 times a month? Enjoying NYC on
someone else's dime: A+. Paying zero dollars and still getting
not getting my money's worth: F -- KP

I WANT TO BE LIKE JARED? Is there no end to the thinking
that a magic diet exists that will make you thin? If getting or staying
thin was easy, EVERYONE would do it. Some folks here at work tried low
carb, living on bacon for several weeks. There is still a half-eaten,
ice encrusted container of low carb ice cream in the freezer. Does anyone
recognize an oxymoron when it is staring them in the face? Even more hilarious
is the positioning of a sub as diet food. It must be aimed at the same
people who think lowfat cream cheese on their 9,000 calorie bagel is working.
In the United States it is usually instructive to "follow the money."
If someone is making a buck off their diet advice or it is copyrighted,
you can be sure it doesn't work. The answer is so obvious that I won't
even bother to sanctimoniously bring it up. The real problem? You just
hate it that your fascist gym teacher was right, don't you? Dieters may
get an A for effort, but a D for self-Delusion. -- Roy
Felipe

ETIQUETTE VULTURES: I'm coming out of the bookstore. A woman who
is walking in holds the door open for me. Before I can open my mouth,
she snaps at me, "YOU'RE WELCOME!" and continues inside. I'll
admit, I often wander around a haze, but I would have thanked her if she'd
just waited a second. Instead, she decided I was not going to thank her
properly, so she thrashed me with her etiquette lesson as if I were five
years old. This happens every once in a while, and all I have to say is,
if you get that upset over not being thanked in 4/4 time, keep your hands
away and let me get my own damn door. D -- Caren
L.

THE LOOKER FAN: It was Tuesday night at Rothko's, and my boyfriend
had taken me to see a band that his friend suggested, called Looker. As
we stood to the side watching the band, I noticed this pixie-sized chick
dancing like a maniac. She was wriggling and jumping like a Grateful Dead
fan, shaking her shoulders, bouncing and stomping her feet, she was the
offspring of Tinkerbell and The Ramones. She wasn't in time with the band,
and she wasn't trying to impress anyone, she was just dancing for the
fun of it. The singer even commented that the girl's dancing was psyching
her up and promptly dedicated the next song to her. So to the band, which
was very catchy and much better than expected, I give a B+. But
to you, amazing dancing rocker-girl in the front row, I give you an A+
-- Anne Rogers

DIRTY ASS KEYBOARDS: Since I'm the office bitch at a small company,
and by far the most tech savvy of the crew, this makes me the go-to person
for any IT related issues that may arise. What I found left me astonished;
aghast with disgust and wondering, "Are this people blind?"
Do you not see the filth and grime protruding from beneath and betwixt
the keys on your keyboard?! It's seriously nasty, people. Did you stuff
11 saltines in your mouth and chew with your mouth open while hovering
directly over your keyboard? Do you care that food bits are getting lodged
in your fingernails every time you touch the keyboard? Have you really
not noticed those massive crumbs? The keyboard is black. It's like a bad
Head n' Shoulders commercial where that dude is wearing a black sweater.
It's completely obvious and totally gross. At one particularly dirt-laden
desk, I hesitated briefly before touching the keyboard. At least my fingers
didn't stick to anything. I then grabbed the keyboard, flipped it over
and shook it vigorously. It was like a mini saltine snowstorm. I'm really
not that anal. I eat at my desk all the time; I just don't eat in a fashion
where the trajectory of the food to my mouth passes over my keyboard.
I also use a napkin. Leaving crumbs like a Hansel: D+ -- triscuit